Italy expels two men accused of assaulting rabbi in Milan

The rabbi, who is in his 60s, said the men attempted to get his attention before one grabbed his hat, put it on his own head, and began mocking him.

By Gabriel Ostrovsky, The Algemeiner

Two men accused of assaulting a rabbi in Milan last month have been expelled from Italy, the country’s interior minister announced, as Italian authorities take action following an attack that alarmed the local Jewish community.

Italian Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi said the two men were repatriated after allegedly attacking the rabbi, together with a third suspect, at a bus stop in Milan’s Bande Nere neighborhood on Sept. 16.

“There is no room in our country for hatred and violence, and no act of antisemitism will ever be tolerated,” Piantedosi said last week while announcing the expulsions.

The victim, the chief rabbi of a synagogue on Milan’s Via Soderini, was waiting for a bus when three young men approached and surrounded him.

The rabbi, who is in his 60s, said the men attempted to get his attention before one grabbed his hat, put it on his own head, and began mocking him.

When the rabbi started recording the encounter, one of the men allegedly kicked him from behind, pushing him from the pavement toward the road.

“It was as if they were proud of what they were doing,” the rabbi later told Bet Magazine Mosaico-CEM, a publication of Milan’s Jewish community.

Police identified the three suspects, two of them brothers, shortly after the incident. They were reportedly aged 19, 20, and 21.

The 20-year-old accused of carrying out the assault was arrested and ordered to report to authorities twice a week.

He is expected to go on trial Nov. 12 on charges of propaganda and incitement to racial hatred.

Milan’s police chief also issued orders barring all three suspects from the city for one year.

One of the men has denied that the group targeted the rabbi because he was Jewish and disputed the account of the violence, saying they had been making TikTok videos while waiting for a friend.

He acknowledged that one member of the group took the rabbi’s hat and another tripped him but denied that they punched or seriously assaulted him.

The incident came amid an ongoing surge in antisemitism across Italy that has increasingly spilled into physical confrontations.

As The Algemeiner previously reported, an Israeli tourist group was subjected to antisemitic abuse at a restaurant in northern Italy around the same period, while Jewish residents and visitors have faced a string of assaults and harassment in Milan, Venice, and other cities.

Italy’s Milan-based Center of Contemporary Jewish Documentation (CDEC) recorded 401 antisemitic incidents during the first half of 2026.

Although that represented a 14 percent decline from the same period last year, the total remained roughly three times the average recorded between 2019 and 2022.

Milan registered more incidents than any other Italian city where a location could be identified. CDEC documented six physical assaults nationwide during the first six months of the year, alongside dozens of threats, acts of discrimination, and antisemitic graffiti.